Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 293

The World Won't Listen

IS EVERYONE BESIDES ME ON THIS EARTH CRAZY?

Hello everyone! Let’s get right to it! I love Larry Stroman’s art. In his prime, there was nobody like him. I run into readers who feel as strongly about his work. He’s definitely a favorite to some.

But… not enough.

You’d have to be a reader of a certain vintage to connect with his work, it seems. And even in his era he never reached superstar status. It feels like his art is do for a reappraisal among comic fans, but there’s no evidence that’s happening. A serious talent fading into obscurity, unjustly. Happens every day. But that makes it no less sad.

I have a similar feeling about Atsuji Yamamoto. I’m a manga reader, but typically only what gets translated for print here in the US. It’s rare that I’ll seek out a fan-translated scan online, mostly because it’s a miserable reading experience. As a result, I was not familiar with Yamamoto until the past couple years.

In that time, I’ve become a superfan.

AMMO, in particular, is just so goddamn cool to me. Like a DePalma film with the tawdry turned up to 11.

Yamamoto has themes in his work. Not all of which will make sense to the reader and not all of which will be palatable to a western reader in 2025. But, undeniable markers that act as calling cards or kinks, depending on your perspective. All of his work, and I mean even the stuff aimed at younger readers, drips with exploitation cinema energy.

He’s enjoyed a long career and still makes art for fans. His work sees reprint overseas from time to time. He’s still an artist, in all the ways that matter.

I just find it annoying he’s not been deemed ‘essential’ and for that reason his stuff doesn’t see English translations. Hence, I only came to his work late in life. I woulda gone crazy for some of these books in my youth.

I’ve teased that he’s done a piece for GEHENNA, but I don’t believe I shared it in full. That’ll come shortly as the book goes to Image today and we’ll see what month of the catalog we can get in.

In the meantime, just soak this guy in.

---

EMILIA PEREZ #1 MOVIE OF ALL TIME

A number of years ago there was a Vulture article comparing the television shows 30 Rock and $#*! My Dad Says. The premise was that the former’s superiority could be quantified, which raises the question “so why does $#*! My Dad Says have several times the viewership?”

It stuck with me because the Coastal Elite conversation hadn’t taken off yet, but we all knew what was happening in that article. Snob doesn’t get how rubes can enjoy slop. It wasn’t that there’s any debate which show is better. All the ‘data’ the writer pulled out to prove the point wasn’t necessary. But there’s something fundamentally fulfilling about a confused Columbia graduate stomping his feet at “good thing not as popular as bad thing!”

The disconnect between critic and audience is well-understood. Critic tells audience what’s good. Audience signals that they didn’t listen by consuming work the critic calls bad. Rinse and repeat.

But what happens when the whole idea is upside down?

Right now the film Emilia Perez is getting a lot of attention. For both reasons the filmmakers would want (multiple Academy Award nominations) and reasons they would not (wide outrage at the idea it got a single nomination).

I have not seen the film. But if the allegations of Emilia Perez is poorly-made schlock are true, I LOVE it. The idea that the Academy is insisting a terrible movie is good is just too funny. Not a boring movie. Not a movie that’s too ambitious. Not any of the qualities that normal people accuse ‘cinephiles’ of pushing on us. Just a piece of shit.

Now obviously there’s the fog of culture war. Conservatives say the Academy is backing Emilia Perez because it’s the story of a Mexican transwoman. Progressives say the same thing, but they’re angry because the film does a poor job of representing transwomen and Mexicans. Both wings are putting the blame on Pollyanna liberals and their need to virtue signal.

Alright. But I don’t care about those things. I’m not mad at transwomen. Also I don’t believe there’s any such thing as an ‘accurate’ representation of millions of individuals. So both causes for anger here don’t stir me at all.

I just love that the movie is bad. And that the typical dynamic is reversed. This isn’t the Academy telling people to watch Roma, a film nobody in America made it through but accepted “must be good.” This is the people yelling “are you deaf and blind? This movie is a pile of shit!” and the Academy screaming back “what are you? Fucking bigots?! There’s a transwoman in this shit! And she’s brown! Get with it!”

Here’s hoping it’s not just an unremarkable movie that got pulled into the Academy blackhole by virtue of its subject matter, like Green Book. This only works if the movie is truly ASS. The novelty is what makes this fun.

In comic books, this is no novelty. Creators gather in groupchats every year to stare in stunned silence at the Eisner nominations. It’s becoming the rule, rather than the freak occurrence, that objectively terrible work is nominated. It’s not as much fun to watch play out as this Emilia Perez thing.

Critics spinning out further and further from the audience they hope to influence is not exactly new. But the idea that the rabble ACTUALLY know better than the professional critics is confusing. Again, not tastes or sensibilities, but the undeniable craftsmanship of a thing shouldn’t be difficult to divine. So what’s happening here? Do the critics represent a shift in the culture? Or are they just new at a thing and can’t speak with confidence about a thing? I don’t know. I just don’t find it very helpful. Call me old, but I still think the purported experts should have SOME expertise.

---

TO THE ICE RAFT!

The above was posted this weekend. Perfunctory, really.

What’s it mean? Gaiman is persona non grata in comic books for the foreseeable future. He can’t slide back to the ghetto even if the allegations are never proven.

Vaguely related, I read an ‘interesting’ take about Gaiman today. The idea was that his connection with fans, particularly the access he allowed, was all part of a plot to meet women. The piece states, “The only people who truly benefit from erasing the boundaries between creator and audience are those eager for unhindered access to the awestruck and the manipulable.”

I can’t tell you how bizarre this reads to someone who actually works in the arts. I mean, I get the idea. I’ve heard the argument before regarding ‘rockstars.’ But when you’re from a DIY background of any type, be that punk music or independent filmmaking, this is just not something you can take seriously.

There’s few boundaries between creator and audience in DIY spaces, because, fucking of course there isn’t. If you’re playing 300 capacity rooms, you are technically on stage- but for all intents and purposes you may as well be in the audience. If you’re playing a basement floor, all it takes you as a musician is to turn your body and, bam, you’re literally part of the crowd. At what point does that change? Gaiman may’ve had lines of people waiting for his signature. But he’s still in convention center that smells of armpit, with only a folding table between himself and ‘regular people.’ When does an artist become an unknowable entity rather than a peer?

There’s a weird sycophancy implied by the premise. “I insist this celebrity date people on his level! Not a normal person!” So, what, this guy is superhuman? A demigod that mere mortals should never approach? What, exactly, is the perceived power imbalance between two people who don’t need each other for anything? Can we just cut to that part? Call me a Marxist, but I’ll need the material conditions detailed here. Power imbalances exist in spaces like hire/fire/promote/demote work environments. They exist in financial institutions where loans can be granted or denied. They exist in the courts, where a judge can decide your fate. They exist in compulsory/coercive hierarchies like prisons. They don’t exist between strangers without material ties to each other.

I agree that comics should hold itself to a higher standard than we have. But not everything is ‘systemic.’ If Gaiman is guilty of rape, that’s because he raped. Not because he ‘had access’ to adults who like his stupid Hallmark Channel fantasy novels.

---

REGARDING THE WHOLE DIAMOND THING

I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t have enough of a business education to make guesses. Part of me thought waiting a week was advisable, but now that I have- I’m no better informed than I was when I heard the news Diamond was declaring bankruptcy.

I can’t see it coming back. Or at least not in a way it would want to. Let’s say Penguin and Lunar choose not to take on smaller publishers coming out of the Diamond diaspora. Maybe Diamond can return and jump right into being the small publisher distro…

In a down market…

When indie publishers have never sold enough to keep the lights on in a full-sized warehouse…

How will that work? Are they gonna run Diamond from a storage unit?

---

PERTH, I BARELY KNEW THEE

I leave for Tasmania in a few days and I’m sad I’ll be saying goodbye to Perth. Great little city.

---

MEDIA CONSUMPTION

Thought I’d never watch Longlegs, but my wife proved me a liar this week. The film is stupid, but well-directed. Style points win the day. I found myself pretty damn angry throughout the film, I’m embarrassed to admit. I kept flashing back to the ‘discourse’ around it when it was still in theaters.

Whenever something feels elevated enough that it may have meaning the audience can’t divine- people just make shit up.

“The protagonist is autism-coded. I feel seen.”

She’s got some demon fog in her brain, you fucking asshole. And deeply traumatized. She may ALSO be ‘autism-coded’ but if you watched this film that the pretentious-ass director obviously put his full heart and soul into and your major takeaway was “omg, she’s just like me” you need your Letterbox account deleted.

Another one I wasn’t in a rush to see is Nosferatu. I liked The VVitch. Hated The Lighthouse for all the reasons people loved it. Liked The Northman for all the reasons people hated it. So, I’m mixed on Eggers.

But this one wasn’t a hit or a miss. It was just a nice collection of shots and then an ending. As a guy who thinks we’re overdue for directors with swag, I enjoyed the vision. But there was nothing there beyond it. Maybe not even a story, technically.

Worth seeing if you like cool vibes and attractive images. Which, I hope is most of you.

---

DESIGN INSPO

A couple months ago I said I’d start dropping random files from the folder labeled DESIGN on my desktop. I have a terrible curse that I can’t recreate anything I see in my head, but I have an eye for some cool stuff. Let’s see what the wheel spins to today.

Ah! Poster for a movie I know nothing about, other than featuring Anita Ekberg who had a really unique look. I know why I stole this one from the internet. It’s got a classic design concept I really wanna use on the book Lorenzo and I are working on. I LOVE ‘figure to one side on a field of faded narrative collage.’ I think it always works. An idea I’d like to run by Lorenzo is hiring cover artists not to do full covers, but to do paper doll figures while Lorenzo provides a story-informed background image. In this way we could work with great draftsmen who aren’t necessarily brilliant comic book artists.

The Anita Ekberg figure on the poster has a vibe for sure. All that leg on display could just be to titillate the audience, but paired with the stance and look I take it as a sign this character is confident and dangerous! Who needs anything more?

---

HAVE A BEAUTIFUL WEEK FAM

I’ll be driving across the country this week, so hopefully there’s no big news. And if there is, it won’t be big news for me. I hope you stay happy and healthy. Do for self.